He found the street he needed easily; Silkstream Close seemed fairly near by, and he started to walk, turning right to pass cosy local shops, along pavements full of mothers with bawling children in buggies and old men wrapped in overcoats walking with careful steps from post office to tobacconist and from supermarket to corner pub. Was one of them his quarry? he wondered and looked at the men who passed, trying to see which one of them looked Jewish; and then felt anger at himself, remembering Miriam Hinchelsea’s jeering response when the question of her Jewishness had come up. Who could say what was a specifically Jewish look, anyway? Yet here he was thinking in the same bigoted fashion. He should be ashamed.
But still he looked; peering at old faces pinched with the cold over tightly wrapped mufflers, or beneath carefully arranged hats, looking for — what? — Hooked noses? Dark eyes? Ringlets? Or was it something less obvious and nothing to do with such simplicities? Perhaps he was looking for an expression of suffering, or of nobility. He turned sharply to cross the road, as though to leave behind him the foolishness of his thinking, looking for the side road that would lead him to Cyril Etting’s house, and made himself think about him.
On the other side of the road, two women were standing gossiping, and beside them a bored child in a scarlet duffle coat pushed a toy car along a garden wall, making engine noises with his mouth. Abner looked at him, and memory stirred. Almost panicking, so important was it to keep it dammed back, he hurried on, forcing himself to think about the man he was about to see.
How old would he be? His own father, Hyman, had been sixty-four when he had died; not old really, but old enough. He had been just eleven when he’d been taken with his family to Dachau, and as the thought formed itself in his head, memory could no longer be controlled. Suddenly Abner was no longer walking along a London suburban street, with its fringe of little houses and gardens on a chilly February morning in 1989; he was sitting in the living room of his parents’ home in Newark in 1973, in the glow of the lamp with the cloth thrown over it, listening to his father’s low voice coming from the shadows behind the pool of light and telling him how it had been. He had felt the chill of fear, icy in his belly, when he’d heard his father’s story that first time and now he felt that coldness again as the memory did not just come back into his mind, but flooded his whole being, as though it was an actual experience he was recalling for himself. He couldn’t stop it. He was no longer Abner but Hyman, the son of Yossel and Bryna, eleven years old and asleep in his bed, and now it was 1936.
He’d been lying awake a long time that night because it had been so strange a day. His parents had sat up long after he’d gone to bed in the little cupboard-like space, which was all the room they could find for him in that poky Berlin flat, talking in frightened and hushed voices; and he remembered how at school the other children had refused to talk to him, had left him and Issy Rabin alone in the corner of the playground surrounded by emptiness, the only Jewish boys there. But he had at last fallen asleep and then, almost as soon it seemed as his eyes had closed, the noise had started; bangings and men shouting, the high wailing notes of his mother’s voice, and his baby sister crying in the way she did, with huge gulps and then roars; and he had tumbled out of his bed as his father had arrived at the door and told him sharply to dress. He had looked so strange to young Hyman, his smooth hair not smooth at all but rumpled, so that his bald patch showed, and that had startled Hyman more than anything else, for his father had never ever looked like that before. He had always combed his hair in the morning before anyone had a chance to see him leave his room. But not this time. Hyman had dressed and picked up his little wooden car, the one he liked best even though he was really too old for it now, but for some reason he’d picked it up and put it in his pocket. And they had gone out of the flat, all of them, Momma and Poppa and the baby Minka and Hyman, eleven years old and very puzzled and only a little bit frightened. Then.
As suddenly as the memory had come to him, it went; Abner was himself again. He was standing quite still in the middle of the pavement of Silkstream Road, in north London, his face cold with sweat and his eyes unfocused, aware of someone standing in front of him and peering up at him, and he blinked and looked, and the small woman with the shopping trolley stared back with birdlike intensity and said in a thin high voice, ‘Are you all right, young man?’
He looked at her stupidly. ‘Pardon me?’
She seemed to brighten. ‘You’re an American! Visiting someone, are you? Can I help you if you’re lost?’ Her curiosity hung around her as thick as a cloud, and he looked at her eager face, hating her for intruding into the pain of his memory, and grateful to her for dispelling it, all at the same time.
He blinked yet again and said carefully, ‘Ah — no, thank you I’m not lost. I have my map.’ And he lifted the book in his hand.
She looked at it and said, ‘Oh, I just thought — well, good morning then.’ And went, leaving him looking down at the book and pretending to check his route, shaken, embarrassed and with an oddly desolate feeling taking the space that the fear had occupied.
For he had been very frightened. It had been as though he had been walking along this rather dull little street with his father hearing him speak of his experiences for the first time and reliving them. And the recollection of the fear that had engendered created even more fear in him. He felt panic rise for a moment and lifted his head and said aloud, ‘Hey, fella, watch it!’ That had been the way he’d learned to stop the feelings coming all those years ago at City, in his second year when he’d been so knocked out by the flu he’d caught from Wallace. Panic attacks, the doctor had told him, free-floating anxiety caused by the flu, and she had made him learn relaxation techniques to control them, but the only one that had worked had been that silly spoken phrase: ‘Hey, fella, watch it!’ And he said it again now and took a deep breath. At last the feeling began to ebb away, and he could start walking again. But his legs felt jellied and his head felt light. He wished he hadn’t come.
But he had and was nearly there; and he had to deal with it had to make his move. To turn and go now would be the end of it all. No Postscripts would ever be made, and that failure would mean there would be no peace for him. Ever. Not to be thought of.
The house was on the corner of a side street, looking sideways across the road to a pretty little park, which was dank and grey now and sodden with tired wintry trees, but which would bloom soon. Even on this February afternoon there was a faint blush of green on some of the trees, and he felt a little better as he looked at them, and then pushed open the creaking gate and walked up the path. Not brick-made this time, like the path of the Hinchelsea house in Oxford, but paved with worn grey stones. The garden through which it ran was neat and well cared for, with clean empty flowerbeds in which a few green spikes showed, promising daffodils soon.
The house had a watchful look, he thought, and then was annoyed with himself for being fanciful. How can a house be watchful, goddammit? And he reached forwards and pressed hard on the bell.
The door opened so promptly that he realised the old man had been standing behind it waiting for him. He must have seen him coming up the path from behind the curtains that shrouded the stained glass window set into the front door, and he thought with a twitch of amusement — I was right, the house was being watchful.
‘Mr Etting?’ he said with great care, and smiled. Not too eager, not too ingratiating, just a smile. The old man stood and stared at him; a bulky figure in a dust-coloured cardigan that drooped in front almost to his knees, bulging in shapeless grey trousers. The cardigan reminded him for a fleeting moment of Miriam Hinchelsea, and again he was amused at himself and began to feel a little better.
‘Who wants him?’ the old man said. His voice was scratchy and thin as though it wasn’t accustomed to being used.
‘My name is Wiseman, Abner Wiseman. I’m a researcher on a movie — a film. I was given your name as a possible — um — advisor and helper by the Shoah Club — you know
, the Survivor’s Centre — in Newark, New Jersey. In America. I’m not filming yet, you understand. Just looking for some guidance.’
The door began, very slowly, to close. The old man standing there with one hand on it was pushing it inexorably forward and Abner had to hold on hard to his impulse to put out a foot and prevent him; that would be no way to reassure a possibly alarmed old man — for indeed, he looked very old — that there was no risk.
‘Someone has to tell the story, the way it really was,’ he said desperately. ‘It’s all I want to do. Tell it the way — ’ He swallowed, seeing the need looming in front of him, hating to have to do it, knowing it was inevitable, knowing he would be lying. ‘The way my father would have wanted it told. He told me what happened to him, and now he’s dead. I have to tell it for him. That’s all I’m trying to do.’
Oh, God, he thought. Hyman would have hated a film, Frieda will hate it too even though in her own way she’s helping me. But I’ve got to make it, and if that means lies, then lies there will be.
The bulky old man stared at him dully, but the door stopped moving and Abner stood there waiting, feeling the cold air on his face, still chilled from the sweat that had filmed it when he had stood there in the street lost in the panic of memory. And at last the old man grunted and opened the door wider.
‘So come in,’ he said, and his voice sounded a little less thin, and he turned ponderously and shuffled slowly along a narrow hallway. After a moment Abner followed him in and closed the front door behind him.
The hallway was dim and smelled powerfully of a thick chemical; and he knew it immediately and at once felt at home; the scent of naphtha, thick and clinging and daring any moth anywhere in the world to come near. Every step on this heavy old carpet under his feet sent up a new wave of it. It was a comforting smell, and he relaxed into it. He was on safe ground.
‘So, a film? Haven’t there been enough yet?’ The old man settled himself into a deep armchair beside an electric fire, in which one bar was burning at a meagre half level, and pulled a rug over his knees. The room was cold and dank, and Abner thought — does he choose it like this? Or is it money that’s the problem? It was hard to tell. The room was heavily furnished with a style he knew to be forty years old, square and uncompromising, but there was a lot of it. The shelf over the fire and those on the walls were full of books and assorted ornaments, all piled in an agreeable jumble, and the carpet was as thick in here as in the hall. But there was no sense of comfort for all the display of possessions. Abner looked at the old man and then, uninvited, sat down in the chair facing him. ‘There haven’t been any films about the — about afterwards,’ he said. ‘That’s what interests me. Not what happened there. We know, God help us. It’s been told and we all know.’
‘Know? You think you know?’ The thin voice was a little stronger now, growing comfortable with being used. ‘What can you know, a boy like you? Were you there? What can you know unless you were there?’
‘No, I wasn’t there. But there have been a lot of films. So many. And books. And television programmes — ’
‘And you think that makes people know?’ the old man said. ‘Much they know. You had to be there, believe me you did.’
There was a little silence, and then Abner said carefully, ‘Well, yes, I’m sure you’re right. But this time I want to make a different sort of film. About what came after — it’s called Postscripts.’
‘Postscripts? How come Postscripts?’
‘At the end of a letter, after you’ve said it all, or think you have, and there’s a bit more to speak of, that’s a postscript. And my film comes after all that the other people have said. It’s what came after — so that’s what I’m calling my movie. About the people who came out of the camps, about their children, and their grandchildren.’
There was a long silence as the old man stared at him and then grinned slowly. It was an unlovely grimace displaying dirty teeth like a broken old fence but there was real amusement in it, and Abner found himself smiling back.
‘Now I see what’s what! You’re thinking about yourself, hey? Not about the people in the camps at all.’
‘No! Not at all — I mean — ’ Abner stopped, and the old man still sat there grinning at him and after a long moment Abner lifted his shoulders slightly. ‘Well, OK. A bit, maybe. Who can say why anyone does what they do? All I know is this is the one I want to make. It’s more. It’s one I’ve got to make. Can you see what I mean? It’s not about me. It’s not even about my parents. It’s about all of them. Everybody, then and now.’
‘What happened to your father?’ the old man said.
‘I’d really rather not talk about — ’ And the old man gave a crack of laughter.
‘You’d rather not? You come here asking me to tell you all about what happened to me, and you don’t want to talk about what happened to your family? Why should I, tell me that? Just tell me, why should I?’
Why does it matter so much? Abner thought, staring at the face, bluish in the cold and blurred with fat but with those bright peering eyes set in it like raisins in a cake. I hated Hyman and Frieda for not telling, but aren’t I as bad as they were, wanting to hold back? Why should I be so queasy? What right have I? And he opened his mouth, and let it come out, any way it wanted to.
‘My father was Polish, and his family went to Berlin in the middle Thirties. His father was a goldsmith and there was good work to be had there. But there was some sort of trouble with his employer and the family were picked up in ’thirty-six and sent to Dachau. They got out of there — they were Poles, and someone somehow pulled strings. I don’t know. He never told me that. And they went back to Poland, to Cracow. My father left school, apprenticed as a goldsmith to his father, and then in ’forty-two they were warned they were going to be picked up — the whole family. So they tried to get away, to Bialystok, but they caught them and put them in Treblinka — ’
‘Treblinka,’ the old man said, and his eyes were as sharp as ever. ‘Cracow Jews in Treblinka?’
‘They’d tried to get to Bialystok. Almost did. So they were close to Treblinka. My father said his father had a brother there, a rich man. They thought he could help.’
‘Some help,’ the old man said, a little sardonic now.
‘I don’t know. Anyway they were taken and never got the chance. They were all in Treblinka, but my father — ’
Abner stopped. He could hear Hyman’s voice again, telling it all to him that evening in the apartment in Newark — that low regular voice, not particularly expressive — could hear the detachment in it and shook a little. And the old man sitting opposite him stirred in his chair.
‘He got away, hey?’
‘Not then,’ Abner said. ‘Not for a long time. Not till ’forty-five. He lived there three years. His parents, his sister — they didn’t make it — ’
‘Three years? He did well,’ the old man said with a fine judicious air. ‘Me, I managed two years and thought I’d done good.’
‘In Treblinka?’
‘Where else? We lived in Warsaw. Where else would they send us?’
‘Two years,’ Abner said. Then with great care, ‘And when you got out?’
‘Out of Treblinka, or out of trouble?’
‘Both.’ Abner ached to get out his notebook. Would he remember all this? Surely he must; how could he not? It was possible, but he had to risk it. This man would be upset by notebooks. Wouldn’t he?
‘Out of Treblinka was first. They took us to Brok, on the river. Such a journey to Brok. In lorries and buses and vans — ’
‘Another camp?’
‘Where else could they take us? We were stinking, lousy, starved — just let us out on the street, just like that? It wouldn’t have worked. The Russians, they took us to another place. And then, after a long time, there were more places, and then more. Displaced persons we were, from everywhere, people where they shouldn’t have been. Those were the terrible times.’
‘Not as terrible as T
reblinka, surely?’ Abner said.
The old man seemed to think about that. ‘I don’t know,’ he said then. ‘In Treblinka, there was a war. We knew where we were, even why, crazy it was, but we knew why. But afterwards, in peace time — they called it peace time. What sort of peace was it for us? Still starving, nowhere to go, Poles still hating us — ’ He stopped then. ‘You know, they went on killing us after the Russians arrived, after the liberation? Just because we were Jews, the Poles went on killing us. Not all of them killed us, but enough. It happened to plenty — at Parczew, at Novy Tara. Jews there were trying to get back to their home towns, and punkt, shot by some anti-Semite Polish officer, or the Polish Home Army or some such. The Germans had gone but they’d left their poison behind. Not that there wasn’t enough of it in Poland anyway. They hated us. It was in their blood, in their guts. For all I know, it still is. Who can say? Poison like that, it doesn’t go so easy, hey? It doesn’t go so easy.’
‘No,’ Abner said. ‘It doesn’t.’ And the room slid into silence as the old man and the young one thought about poison.
The old man stirred first. ‘Listen, we’re going to talk, I got to have something to moisten the mouth. It gets dry — some diabetes I got, and it gets dry. The doctor says, get thin, the diabetes should go. But what do I care? After so long starving he thinks I’m going to get thin? What’s left but eating, hmm?’ And he laughed.
Abner looked up and said, ‘Can I get you something?’
‘Sure you can,’ the old man said. ‘Sure you can. There’s a Chinese restaurant up by the station, right? Go fetch, and me, I’ll make tea.’
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